


Feels Real

by Amberina



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-18
Updated: 2003-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-23 04:27:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amberina/pseuds/Amberina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dawn is fifteen. Or two. Or twenty-billion. It's all relative.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feels Real

Dawn is fifteen. Or two. Or twenty-billion. It's all relative. Dawn's not sure what relative means, but she thinks whatever it is - her age falls into the category. Or something. She doesn't give it much thought. Okay, she does. She gives it a lot of thought, actually, but none of her thoughts are coherent enough to repeat - because Dawn doesn't understand.

Even after everything, she doesn't understand. She knows, of course. But knowing is different than understanding. Because Dawn feels real.

She feels as real as anyone else. She remembers everything, all the normal stuff, all the strange stuff that comes with having a slayer for a sister - but she remembers. She feels and she remembers, and it doesn't make sense.

Even after everything - her sister dying and the tower and everything - Dawn can't believe what she's been told, what she *knows* is true.

She is the key, a gazillion-year-old thingamajig used to make the dimensions get melty. She is dangerous, and she was made for destruction, and she represents bad, evil energy and the monks wanted to keep her from getting in the wrong hands. The monks really were strange individuals. Dawn could have just as well been a favorite pair of lucky sneakers. Or a lover. Buffy would always protect a lover.

Dawn has a suspicion that if Angel had been the key, Angel would have been the one to dive into that portal. Buffy would have cried, and there would have been big romantic kissage and major angst and everything. But in the end, Buffy would sacrifice her true love to save the world. She had done it before.

But Dawn was different. Buffy couldn't let Dawn die - why? Dawn had never really existed.

That's the thing, though. Dawn feels real, she feels like she's existing, like she's always existed. And she's pretty sure Buffy feels the realness of her as well. Only crazies could see Dawn's innate fakeness, and as far as Dawn could tell, Buffy wasn't crazy.

Buffy died to save her. Because she's some mystical key.

Dawn thinks she'll wake up soon. Because this is one of the weirdest dreams she's ever had. She'll wake up and she'll tell Buffy and Buffy'll raise her eyebrows and give Dawn that amused look and tell her she should stop eating junk food before bed.

Yeah, Dawn will wake up. Any minute now. Because if anything's not real, it's this - this whole key thing her subconscious has concocted. It can't be real.

Because Dawn? Feels real.


End file.
